With my last pregnancy, I experienced several nights of sudden, sharp, painful cramping in my calf muscles and feet. It always happened during the night, waking me up from a peaceful night of sleep.

The picture of me, left, is at only 30 weeks, taken after a painting class. I'm huge!! I stayed active during my pregnancy which helped a lot with my leg cramps.

Avoiding cramps

(Do the following before bedtime

as well as a few times during the day)

(The below are also great tips for people who fly a lot)

1. regular exercises which can improve your circulation
2. bend and stretch your foot up and down 30 times
3. rotate each foot 10x in one way 10x in the other way
4. face & stand 2-3 feet away from a wall, lean forward with arms outstretched to touch the wall but keep your feet flat on the floor, hold for 10 seconds, release, repeat
5. try a warm bath, before bedtime, to relax your muscles or apply a hot water bottle

Natural Remedies

1. drink pickle juice
2. eat extra bananas
3. eat foods high in magnesium

In the midst of a cramp, how to ease the pain/cramp

1. straighten your leg, pull your toes up towards your ankle so that your toes are lifted towards your shin (front of lower leg)
2. start rubbing the cramping muscle, hard and vigorously
3. try walking around on your heels

KMC: Kangaroo Mother Care. Cuddling your baby like a kangaroo is a valuable step parents can give to their newborns. The mother or father places their child, skin to skin, vertically against their chest, acting as sort of a live incubator. Just like a real baby kangaroo, your baby finds themself in a safe, warm pouch helping them to thrive and grow. This is such a great bonding position as well.

My husband and I both spend hours a day doing the KMC with our newborns. We did it with our first and now with our twins. Especially being preemies, we try to give them as much KMC as possible.

This is also a GREAT opportunity to train and get in some valuable tummy time for newborns.

I think it is important for high risk mothers to know and understand their options for pregnancy tests. Especially with twins, when there is a preterm birth risk, there are tests that can be monitored and run. In my case, the doctors were monitoring the following ways:

1) cervical length: This is measured by an unltrasound probe in the vagina. The shorter or when your cervix starts to shorten then you run a higher risk of preterm delivery.

2) fetal fibronection: My doctors also call this the tree branch swab if that lets you know how "pleasant" it is for the patient. It is a test usually ran every 2 weeks via a swab of cervial secrections fooking for certain protein that usually shows up weeks before a delivery. It takes a couple of days to give you test results. A negative test results means that you will probably not go into labor within the next 2 weeks.

3) ultrasounds: I had so many of these, I think I could start doing them myself. It depends on the doctor's peference for how frequently they want these performed. I was having an ultrasound weekly during the 2nd and 3rd trimester and 2x weekly by the 7th month of pregnancy.  

Since my doctors, especially my perinatologist, kept weekly checks on me via the above tests, when I had a placenta abruption, she was able to act quickly to save my life and the life of one of the twins.

Some other posts that might be of multiple interest: Our shock of finding out we were pregnant with twins, My twin birth story, Placed in different rooms in the NICU, Recovering from a C-section: The Hall Walk, Pretty good for a white boy, Bringing newborn twins home from hospital, Hands free pumping bra

Original image before being edited: Rawich

Just 4 hours after delivering my babies, while waiting in the recovery room, the words “give me a pump” were immediately spoken. The nurse said that she had never had a woman, just hours after having an emergency C-section, asking for a pump. Especially in my condition, as they were wanting to transfuse up to 3 bags of blood from all my blood loss to blood clots. The nurse, and my husband, were trying to encourage me to sleep and recover, but I could only think of my babies. Pumping was just the first thing on my mind, having preemies, I knew I needed to start pumping right away, giving them all the continued support that I could.

Some other posts that might be of interest: Our shock of finding out we were pregnant with twins, My twin birth story, Placed in different rooms in the NICU, Recovering from a C-section: The Hall Walk